This page is about a very special lady. I first met her in November of 1965. She was a very sweet and kind person to me from the first time that I met her. Her name is "Susie". At the time little did I really know that she would become my Mother-in-Law.
I have so much that I could say about her, but I know that I will talk more about her later on some other pages too. I still to do this day, have so much respect for her. She lost her husband in 1976. She then got a piano and she loved to play it and sing, even at home alone.
I have a lot of wonderful memories of her and some good fun ones too. When I married her son, from that day on she was Mom. She came to our home in Dinuba, Calif to spend a couple of days, and we had such a wonderful time. My Mother and she began to exchange birthday gifts as their birthdays were only 6 days apart.
Now this was so good and I loved for the 2 Mom's in my life to be close and do something so special. This gave me a lot of wonderful memories to keep in my mind. I remember when I first had the 2 Mom's together and I was saying something to one of them, and called her Mom. Both ladies came to see what I was wanting. Or if I said Mom, both would answer me. Then together the 2 Mom's told me that maybe we should come up with another name for one or something.
I could have never called her "Susie". To me that was not being respectful and nice. I am not trying to say that it is wrong to do that, but it was just not the thing to do for me. And she was like another Mom to me. No not my Mother, but a different kind of a Mom. If she ever felt anything other than good for me, I never felt it.
She and I never in all of the years that she was my Mother-in-Law, had one bad word to say to each other. I loved her with all of my heart. She was so good to all of her kids and she did have six children of her own, and one step-son that she raised from a young boy.
When I became a member of the family, I saw how very much this lady did love her children and their spouses. She loved all of her grandchildren a lot too. She was not in good health and she was not able to do a lot, but most of the people would never know that unless you really knew her.
When one of the kids came home, all of us would go and have a big home cooked meal. Oh I can sure remember Mom and her fried chicken or pork chops. She would cook enough for the entire town. She enjoyed us so much. The boys would tease her and make her laugh. She attended church every Sunday down the street from where she lived.
The church had several members when she started going. It began to go down and not many would come out to the services. You would have thought she would not go, when the people all stopped coming but maybe 4 or 5 besides the preacher. One day she came to our home for dinner after church. I ask her, Mom how many people came to church today, as this was a hurt to her, that so many had stopped coming. The talk of just closing it down was the subject for sometime. Mom said well today, it was just me and the preacher. I kind of laughed a little, and Mom didn't say anything. Just her normal smile. Then suddenly I said you know Mom, that is not even funny. That is so sad. She had a tear in her eyes and said, No Carolyn it is not funny, and my heart breaks as it could be such a good church. Well she and the preacher and sometime maybe one or two others would attend and have a service.
This is another time that she proved to me, about being positive and if we hang in there God will bring us through all of this. Then finally after trying to hang on, and not enough people attending they did have to close the doors. This is a sad thing when the church did close the doors. It made me do a lot of thinking about something's in our daily lives. But she did hang on to the very end. Then she just picked up and went to another church to worship God. She loved God so much and He was the important person in her life.
Mom was thankful for all that she got out of life. She was one lady that didn't look for fancy things, or money or anything to make her happy. She was just a plain country lady that I loved, from the beginning of our relationship. It came easy to me, as she was one that anyone would love and respect. Mom would have turned 88 yrs old today. And I did want to make her a special page to just say something about her. She is celebrating today in Heaven for her birthday. She went to be with her Lord in '1984'. And I am sure she is waiting to see all of her loved ones someday. I love you Mom and I promise to come and be with you when it is my turn to enter Heaven. I will be so happy to see my Mother-in-Law, once again. No bad Mother-in-Law stories for me ever. Love Carolyn May 26,2003
